AMBITIOUS plans to turn Barnsley town centre’s landmark digital business district into a sustainable ‘urban village’ featuring housing and a multi-storey car park will take a step closer in August, according to a council document.
‘The Seam’ digital campus in the town centre home to two Digital Media Centres and Barnsley College’s SciTech building is already established as a place where people set up and grow innovative tech businesses, explore new ideas, study and collaborate.
Plans for the County Way site propose to add a range of ‘accessible, inclusive and inspiring community facilities for the benefit of all’.
Ruling cabinet members are set to discuss a construction contract for the first phase of the plan at a meeting on August 16, the Chronicle can reveal.
A report said: “The public space also includes new pedestrian routes across the site to the multi-storey car park, located off Old Mill Lane.
“There will be a main promenade walkway running from the campus’ entrance at the junction of Eldon Street and Regent Street to the new car park.
“The route will include steps and an accessible ramp built into the landscape, up onto the upper deck of The Seam, while the car park will also be accessible off County Way.
“The campus offers an important opportunity to demonstrate how an ambitious zero carbon approach to development can be realised while responding to the wider sustainability and active travel objectives.
“We have been undertaking car park occupancy surveys both pre-Covid and since September 2021 in order to improve the management of car parking across the town centre and minimise disruption.
“In light of The Seam’s sustainable aspirations and the council’s zero carbon targets, the new car park will have 40 electric vehicle charging points from the offset, with capacity to increase provision in line with demand.”